My dad needs a new PC...

[Alielle]

My dad needs a cheap, but better PC than the POS he's using now (which narrows it down to... anything). He needs one with WinXP Professional, for some program his work uses. His computing needs are very basic; he just needs to be able to do his work stuff, type email, and browse the Internet. Here's the solution I came up with:

$200 PC from Walmart.com (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1957333&cat=41937&type=19&dept=3944&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937): This'll be more than enough for what he does. The only downside: no floppy drive, though we can work around this by sending stuff to my PC and using my floppy drive if we need to.

$140 or so WinXP Pro from a wholesale website.

Presumably, I can install WinXP over Lindows (the OS the Wallyworld computer comes with) without any problems. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Is this a good idea? Keep in mind I'm by no means a computer pro or anything. ;_; The most I've done is installed PCI cards...

[ABDUR101]

http://www.yeeha-mall.com

I custom built a 1.2ghz comp with DVD drive and all that for $440, and shipping was $40. That was waaay back in Sept though. Just take a look around and see what you can make and it gives you the price.

[Abaddon]

Avoid large chain computer corporations: they will charge you an arm and a leg.
for something ur dad can use comfortably, prolly a 800mhz machine or greater. if its just for work, a gigabyte motherboard would suffice as its idiot-proof and comes with onboard gfx and sound.
as for ram, u could get 256 or 512, depending on how many apps he'll want open. DDR Ram is good.
as for winxp, if you look around you may find a small comp retailer that will include it for free. seldom few ppl would wanna fork out a lot of money for xp professional unless his work supplies it.

As for the $200 comp you've mentioned, its bizarre that it would come w/o a floppy drive. they're only a matter of $15 (probably 10 or 5 dollars where u live) and are easy to install. if you've done PCI cards then a floppy disk drive is not much harder.

happy finding http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Kent]

If you know how, you can order the parts from Pricewatch (http://www.pricewatch.com)'s listed sites and get some of the lowest prices possible and put the thing together yourself.

I got me a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 a few weeks after launch for $213 + S&H, and that's a pretty good deal considering how close it was to launch.

My dad needs a new computer, too. So when I go up to visit him in December-January I'm going tosee about building him a new one (as well as ditching crappy AOL and getting Broadband).

Egghead (http://www.egghead.com) is pretty good about getting your stuff to you, and I'd recommend you look there for parts as well.

[Alielle]

Thanks, guys. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif It turns out my dad's girlfriend might already have a computer he can use, but if not, I'll probably go with one of the barebones systems from Yeeha Mall. I'm lazy/easily frustrated, so building a system is out of the question. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

He wanted to go with Dell or Gateway at first, and I lectured him on how unnecessary that was; he'd just be paying out the nose for a sticker. -_- If I wasn't around, he probably would've gotten AOL, too!